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Purpose The existing literature point that the presence of women directors in a firm reduces its risk. However, the relation between boardroom gender diversity and a firm’s return is widely disputed leading to no concrete answer. Some studies mention that women directors have a positive impact on firm performance, whereas, on the other hand, some findings suggest that women directors reduce financial performance. This paper aims to study the relationship of firm risk and return with boardroom gender diversity and the net impact on firm performance in the Indian context. This study uses not only traditional measures of risk and return but also the third measure of risk-adjusted returns to postulate its findings. Design/methodology/approach Based upon the data of the top 100 of the Bombay Stock Exchange-500 firms for the period FY 2009–2010 to FY 2018–2019, this study applied fixed effect panel regression and random effects Tobit regression to examine the effect of board gender diversity on firm performance. Findings The study concludes that firms with women directors on board have lower risk and lower returns. It also results in a higher risk-adjusted return, creating a positive impact on a firm’s performance. Originality/value The paper contributes to the existing literature on corporate governance by considering return, risk and risk-adjusted returns in single research to have a holistic measure of firm performance. It provides empirical evidence from one of the largest emerging economies, India where the female director and independent female director have been introduced recently.

Stock split should not have any impact on share prices, and there should be no value creation. The purpose of this study is to find any impact of stock splits announced in India between 1999 and 2019 on stock returns. The study aims to find differences in the impact of stock splits on stock returns with differences in stock split ratios. To examine the impact, the study includes 224 splits and adopts the standard event study methodology to find results. The presence of an abnormal return around split announcement day is the main factor, which determines the impact of stock split on the stocks. Average Abnormal Returns and Cumulative Average Abnormal Returns on percentage basis, z-test and p-value are used to statistically analyze the impact on stock prices around the announcement day of splits. These tests are used across different window periods (e.g., 20 days, 10 days and 5 days) around the event day (announcement day) to check if the impact of the event continues or decreases over time. The results point to a significant positive impact of stock splits on the returns of stock around the day the split was announced. The results also show that the impact is stronger for stock splits with ratios 10:1 (2.72 percent) and 10:2 (2.14 percent). It can be suggested that 10:1 and 10:2 are the most popular split ratios that receive maximum ongoing response to splits in the announcement window.

Development banking in India is almost as old as India’s independence. The emergence of development banking in India is a post-independence phenomenon. Development bank is essentially a multi-purpose financial institution with a broad development outlook. It is a financial institution which provides all types of financial assistance (medium as well as longterm) to business units, by way of providing loans, underwriting, investment and guarantee operations and promotional activities – economic development in general and industrial development, in particular. Through this discussion we try to highlight the phases through which Development Banking in India underwent, purpose for which they were established and how they are different from commercial banks in India. We also try to stress on the extent to which presence of Development Banks is relevant and important in the current scenario. KEY WORDS: Development Banks ,Capital Market, Commercial Banks, Financial Institutions, Foreign Exchange

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